this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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96
Why a kilobyte is 1000 and not 1024 bytes (zeta.one)
submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
168 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I often find myself explaining the same things in real life and online, so I recently started writing technical blog posts.

This one is about why it was a mistake to call 1024 bytes a kilobyte. It's about a 20min read so thank you very much in advance if you find the time to read it.

Feedback is very much welcome. Thank you.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Initially the SI prefixes were used and used 1024 instead of 1000

Only CPUs and RAM use 1024. Floppy disks and hard drives going way back to the 1970's used 1000. In software, both are used depending on the context (and also obviously depending on the software). Most modern operating systems use 1024 for RAM and 1000 for file sizes (in the early days of computing, that agreed upon approach didn't exist, and it varied from one computer to the next).

@smokin_shinoby's tech school was shit. There has never been consistency on this issue and it's really sad that they failed to teach both numbering systems as they are (and always were) widely used.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Fair on the floppy thing. I was too young to have worried about that.